You want ME to do WHAT for a driving license??

I have to say this before you get too deep into this very disturbing blog... this experience has been a massive blow to my ego.. a huge injustice.. unbelievably unbelievable.. a gross failure of the system... ok ok. you get the point.

The need: A local UAE drivers license
Problem: Should not be any problems at all... after all we are talking about ME getting a license
At Fault: The damn system!

Alright, so the ordeal started when I first got to the UAE in October, 2007. I went to get myself a drivers license so that I could get a long term car to be more mobile around here. I was told that because I am an Indian citizen, I have to get a residence visa before I can get a license. Ok, a little weird, but fine.. so the process to get a residence visa started and after 2 months.. I finally got one at the beginning of February.

Alright, try number 2, now armed with a residence visa and a U.S. drivers license.
Me: Sir, I have a residence visa and a U.S. Drivers license, can I get a local license please?
Man behind the counter (MBC): Can I see your passport
Me: Sure, here it is.
MBC: Oh, you are an Indian citizen?
Me: Yes
MBC: You can't get a license without taking driving classes
Me: What??? Driving lessons??? But I already have a drivers license from two countries! I've had a U.S. license for 5 years and have driven on the right hand side of the road for that long!
MBC: You have to be a U.S. citizen to be able to use the U.S. license and get a UAE license right away. If you are an Indian citizen, you have to go and take driving classes.. Thank You.

What the crap!?!?! ME?? Take driving lessons?? (still hasn't sunk in). I mean, I have never taken driving lessons, if there is one thing I take pride in, its my driving. I've been driving since I was 10!! .. after a while I think to myself - let me at least go and see what these driving lessons entail...

Now I think to myself... F&@# it, I'm just going to have to take taxi's everywhere. Why? What I found out about the driving lessons absolutely destroyed what was left of my ego.

20 classes, 1/2 hour each, max two per day.. so that itself will take me 2 weeks at the minimum. During that, a Preliminary lecture, a signal lecture, a final lecture and a safety protection training course! What on earth?? Oh, and if the lecturer woke up on the wrong side of his damn bed, or is having a crap day and decides to fail ME(!) on a lesson, I have to start all over again!

The best is yet to come, first problem, I will have to wait a minimum of 3 months to get on the list to be able to get into a class. 3 months??? And then take driving LESSONS??! Then, after all this, I find out how much it will cost... AED 2,000!! That is $544.95!! For a drivers license??? Are you freaking kidding me? I am NOT paying that much and going through all that to drive here! I'm going to take taxi's everywhere. I can't believe I just said that. Damn it all!

Travel Map

This is actually kind of neat. Below is my travel map so far. I've visited 18 countries in my short life. Pretty lucky I would say. My goal is a 100! Wish me luck.

Lets see how many I can add before I leave the U.A.E!

• Create your own travel map or travel blog

• Visit TripAdvisor.com

RIP HD-DVD

VS

The final few 'nails' in HD-DVD's coffin have been driven. On February 19th, 2008, Toshiba made an official announcement that the company would no longer develop, manufacture or develop HD-DVD products. Today, Microsoft slashed prices of its HD-DVD player from $129.99 to $49.99. Ouch.

I guess I'm going to have to go and buy myself a PS3 now that we know who won the format war. This might actually help boost the sales of the PS3.

Mannequins Banned

The municipality of Sharjah, UAE has recently imposed a ban on mannequins that 'resemble human beings' from being displayed in shops. They can, however, be displayed headless, or separate from their heads. This decision was made due to mannequins arousing the lust of innocent people thus leading to horrendous behavior.

Personally, I'd be more worried about the effect of headless human like mannequins on children, but thats just me. It will also be interesting to see how they dress up mannequins that do not resemble human beings.

Allowed

Not Allowed

Sunday to Thursday

Once again I find myself sitting in the office on a Sunday while most of my colleagues are getting ready to enjoy the second day of their weekend. This whole having a weekend on Friday and Saturday isn't really working too well for me. I don't really have Friday off because the rest of my offices work on Friday and I have a conference call every Friday evening. So, in the end, I am left with one day, Saturday, where I am on the same page as the rest of my colleagues.

So why is the work week Sunday through Thursday in most Muslim countries? I don't know yet, but I shall find out. I would at least like to find out why I am sitting in the office on a Sunday the next time I'm here.

Shopping Festival

The world famous Dubai Shopping festival is on! Woohoo.. I say Woohoo with a proper dose of sarcasm because I do not consider myself a shopper. I have never been excited at the thought of going to a mall and looking around for things to buy. On ocassion, ideas come to my head of what I need next and I go to the store, buy what I need and exit the mall and all of its booby traps.



There are positive aspects of the Dubai Shopping festival, prize give aways, I've been reading of the number of people who have gone shopping and come home with bars of solid gold, or cars, or houses, tv's, trips, etc etc. Needless to say, I have never won anything. It could also be because I have not been hanging around at the malls increasing my chances of winning. I doubt very much that I am going to win one of these great prizes by sitting at home.



There is also the vast number of concerts, performances, shows, fireworks displays that come along with the DSF. I love fireworks.. so I did venture to the mall with my camera for the sole purpose of taking some pictures of the fireworks show. I have always wanted to take pictures of one, but have never been at the right place at the right time. I did manage a few pictures of the fireworks, being my first time, I was a little shaky, but there is always next time to improve.



What are the bad parts of the DSF?? Crowds, 1000's upon 1000's of people come to Dubai from all over the world with one sole purpose in life - to shop till they drop! Why just last week I got up at my usual waking time, got ready and walked into the coffee shop to get my usual breakfast. What I saw and heard, gave me a heart attack and ruined my desire to eat at the same time, and let me tell you, it isn't easy to make me not want to eat. There were 180 middle aged women (I say middle aged because I searched for the young ones) all wearing bright red shouting, screaming, laughing and generally unable to contain their excitement of being in Dubai for the Shopping festival. Apparently some software company that was based in India decided it would be a great idea to let all their women employees and the wife's of their male employees and their mothers, sisters, aunts, etc etc to go on an all expense (except for the shopping) paid trip to Dubai! As luck would have it, they decided to settle in at the same hotel I stay at, what bloody luck! It took 4 large charter buses to take the group to the mall.



Then there is the issues with taxi's. I am going to need an entirely different post on taxi's, but let me just say that it is impossible to get a taxi in Deira (where I stay) during the shopping festival, so I hate it already. What is the point of going to the mall, when it takes you an hour to get a cab, and once you are done shopping at the mall, you realise that you have to wait 2 hours in a line for taxi's to come back home. Not my cup of tea. So there you have it, a short breif account of the shopping festival.

The travails of single South Indian men of conservative upbringing ...

I really wish I had come up with what you are about to read below. It is pretty funny. Unfortunately, I received it as an email forward. Much credit to the writer for this entertaining piece. Hope you enjoy it.

Yet another action packed weekend in Mumbai, full of fun, frolic and introspection. I have learnt many things. For example having money when none of your friends have any is as good as not having any. And after spending much time in movie theaters, cafes and restaurants I have gathered many insights into the endless monotony that is the love life
of south Indian men. What I have unearthed is most disheartening.

Disheartening because comprehension of these truths will not change our status anytime soon. However there is also cause for joy. We never stood a chance anyway. What loads the dice against virile, gallant, well educated, good looking, sincere Mallus (From Kerala) and Tams? (From Tamil Nadu) (Kanadus (From Karnataka) were once among us, but Bangalore has changed all that.)

Our futures are shot to hell as soon as our parents bestow upon us names that are anything but alluring. I cannot imagine a more foolproof way of making sure the child
remains single till classified advertisements or that maternal uncle in San Francisco thinks otherwise.

Name him "Parthasarathy Venkatachalapthy" and his inherent capability to combat celibacy is obliterated before he could even talk. He will grow to be known as Partha. Before he knows, his smart, seductively named Northy classmates start calling him Paratha (Indian Bread). No woman in their right minds will go anyway near poor Parthasarathy. His investment banking job doesn't help either. His employer loves him though. He has no personal life you see.

By this time the Sanjay Singhs and Bobby Khans from his class have small businesses of their own and spend 60% of their lives in discos and pubs. The remaining 40% is spent coochicooing with leather and denim clad muses in their penthouse flats on Nepean Sea Road. Business is safely in the hands of the Mallu manager.

After all with a name like Blossom Babykutty he can't use his 30000 salary anywhere. Blossom gave up on society when in school they automatically enrolled him for Cookery Classes. Along with all the girls.

Yes my dear reader, nomenclature is the first nail in a coffin of neglect and hormonal pandemonium. In a kinder world they would just name the poor southern male child and throw him off the balcony. "Yes Appa we have named him Goundamani..." THUD. Life would have been less kinder to him anyway.

If all the women the Upadhyays, Kumars, Pintos and, god forbid, the Sens and Roys in the world have met were distributed amongst the Arunkumars, Vadukuts and Chandramogans we would all be merry Casanovas with 3 to 4 pretty things at each arm. But alas it is not to be. Of course the south Indian women have no such issues. They have names which are like sweet poetry to the ravenous northie hormone tanks. Picture this: "Welcome, and this is my family. This is my daughter Poorni (what a sweet name!!)
and my son Ponnalagusamy (er.. hello..). ." Cyanide would not be fast enough for poor Samy. Nothing Samy does will help him. He can pump iron, drive fast cars and wear snazzy clothes, but against a braindead dude called Arjun Singhania he has as much chance of getting any as a Benedictine Monk in a Saharan Seminary.

Couple this with the other failures that have plagued our existence. Any attempt at spiking hair with gel fails miserably. In an hour I have a crown of greasy, smelly fibrous mush. My night ends there. However the Northy just has to scream "Wakaw!!!" and you have to peel the women off him to let him breathe.

In a disco while we can manage the medium hip shake with neck curls, once the Bhangra starts pumping we are as fluid as cement and gravel in a mixer. Karan Kapoor or Jatin Thapar in the low cut jeans with chaddi strap showing and see through shirt throws his elbows perfectly, the cynosure of all attention.

The women love a man who digs pasta and fondue. But why do they not see the simple pleasures of curd rice and coconut chutney? When poor Senthilnathan opens his tiffin box in the office lunchroom his female coworkers just disappear when they see the tamarind rice and poppadums. They have all rematerialized around Bobby Singh who has ordered in Pizza and Garlic bread. (And they have the gall to talk of foreign origin.)

How can a man like me brought up in roomy lungis and oversized polyester shirts ever walk the walk in painted on jeans (that makes a big impression) and neon yellow rib hugging t shirts? All I can do is don my worn "comfort fit" jeans and floral shirt. Which is pretty low on the Look at me lady" scale, just above fig leaf skirt and feather headgear
a la caveman, and a mite below Khakhi Shirt over a red t-shirt and baggy khakhi pants and white trainers a la Rajni in "Badshah".

Sociologically too the tam or mallu man is severely sidelined. An average tam stud stays in a house with, on average, three grandparents, three sets of uncles and aunts, and over 10 children. Not the ideal atmosphere for some intimacy and some full throated "WHOSE YOUR DADDY!!!" at the 3 in the morning. The mallu guy of course is almost always in the Gulf working alone on some onshore oil rig in the desert. Rheumatic elbows me thinks.

Alas dear friends we are not just meant to set the nights on fire. We are just not built to be "The Ladies Man". The black man has hip hop, the white man has rock, the southie guy only has idlis and tomato rasam or an NRI account in South Indian Bank Ernakulam Branch. Alas as our destiny was determined in one fell swoop by our nomenclature, so will our future be.

A nice arranged little love story. But the agony of course does not end there. On the first night, as the stud sits on his bed finally within touching distance and whispers his sweet desires into her delectable ear, she blushes, turns around and whispers back "But Amma has said only on second saturdays..."